To Shield the World (Warhammer High Elf Mage Quest)

Vote is Open!

The Father of the Elves

Kurnous, father of the elves.

There are outsiders who question. There are always outsiders who question. How can Asuryan be the Creator, and Kurnous the Father? In times past the Nehekarans had shown some grasp of it, seeing the Breath of the Gods in its own right for all so many of them abused that power; and the cold blooded of Lustria, in the most heartless way possible, but precious few others; certainly among the lacking creatures which now squat in the Old World.

Asuryan carved Ulthuan. Asuryan made oaths. Asuryan put the very sun in the sky. Everything that exists owes itself to Asuryan, from the lowliest pauper in Ind to the greatest King in Ulthuan.

Kurnous though, Kurnous raised you. Kurnous made you Elves. Kurnous taught husbands to love their wives, taught you how to hunt, how to educate children to live, how to survive in the forests, how to make friends of forest beasts, to shave to be proper. Kurnous in His Magnanimity granted right to the Elves to ride the wild beasts. Kurnous made you warriors, in the truests, barest forms: In Ellyrion, in Chrace, in the wild places, the honor duels which formed the seed of military culture flow back to him as much as they do to Eldrazor. The one who blessed your...fumblings, as a young mage, the "camaraderie" of hunters as well as he blesses the camaraderie of hunters.

And you in particular. Mage of Ghur, mage of wild beasts, you may try and clad yourself in the robes of academia, in the ways of Hoeth, in the appearance of Saphery and her mages; but they and you are not in the same. An inner Hoeth speaks in you, but the inner Kurnous sings, a light yet echoing song that is carried on the winds, the deep bass of lions and the chorus of cicada, the song of the robin and the call of the bear, they all flow from you.

From your Ghur.

You feel the Scratchsmith approaching, the taint of her "god" threatening the breath that flows from you, the blessing of Kurnous unleashed, the might of the hunter that sings in your flesh.

The stone. The stone, the stone, the stone, you must grasp the stone. You grasp it in a hand that faintly shimmers with an amber light, but the connection is weak, even here, even in Norsca, the breath of the gods tamed by the Will of Asuryan.

You are the son of Kurnous. You are all his children, but you more than most: you, whose line stretches back to Blackfangs, who in the Time of the Incursion, in the Time Before the Treachery, bore His Blessing, allied with His Beasts.

Mortals forget.

The gods do not.

The Blood Flows in Your Veins.

Your Kin have sinned against the wild places. In Naggaroth, Blackfang torments and hunts, slaughters and burns, slays and maims, destroys the wild places. They shame their ancestors; and you share that shame. Blood connects you. The Beastwalkers taught you that much as you learned the most basic of their rites.

Blood connects you.

Blood Connects You.

And so in blood you shall be redeemed.

You take a dagger and with a quite strike slide open your palm and ichor and Ghur alike flow from you like a river, the un-reality of Norsca allowing these things. You hear brutish, babbling Dwarf-Speak, and feel the rage of Kurnous at the slayers of lions and dragons and beasts, but he puts it aside as your friends interpose themselves and you...

You write, tracing Asai on your forehead in the red of blood, shared, and bleeding the dishonor with the pain that faintly radiates from your palm.

Elthrarior Kurn-Lecai Isaltin.

A grim fate for us, Light Kurnous' duty.

A-elromui Lis Lacoi.

But endless hope His Glory.

Kunmalav Odri Uthlo

And bloody vengeance, not His Son.

Your throat aches as the blood continues to pour and the words pour with it as you trace more and more of the blood onto your body, wordlessly slipping from your robes, ignoring the cold to fulfill the pact, ignoring the cold to fulfill the promise, ignoring the cold to cleanse yourself in the eyes of your father and of your forefathers in ages now long past.

Nadrstirr Lais Kurn-Lecai.

We have forgotten the Bright Kurnous.

Qusrai Lais Sarsen.

We have menaced His Wife.

Llais Skalesevir.

We have wounded his honor.

You start tracing on your belly, sea of energy, sea of life, seat of bravery, place he filled for you all in times long since passed.

Tithanyn.

We Shall Sacrifice.

You write it over your heart. And then you fall over.

And when next you awake, you are in Norsca.

And not Norsca.

A great snowy forest of golden-boughed trees extends in every direction, farther than the eyes can see. Leaves the shade of emeralds bright and shimmering cover them by inches, while flowers the shade of rubies and sapphires, pearls and amethysts, opals and garnets, layered on every inch of bark.

And then you turn about, your spirit, your soul, and you see.

Him.

They say Asuryan looks upon the Phoenix King as he steps through the Flames. That He is Judged by the Emperor of Heavens, looked upon, studied; and the same for the burdened descendants of Aenarion, the same for those descended of His Champion.

This is not that.

He is not looking upon you.

You are being allowed the dignity of looking upon him. A great chorus, a prismatic-sheen of a thousand-thousand hues of Ghur, of Ghyran, of Aqshy, Azyr--a stag headed champion, nude above the waist, armed with spear and bow--an undualating vortex of Nature, of the Wild, of the Hunter, of Survival and of all things your people tie to it--a warrior, a lord, a soveriegn and prince striding his domain, master of the Hunt--the aethyric reflection of the elven love of nature and understanding of your place in the cycle--the father, the lover, the teacher.

He is your greater, something spiritual, something grand, something terrible and awesome and wonderful in equal measure.

One betrayed, one mocked, one degraded.

The Blackfangs of Naggaroth forget themselves in their arrogance and in their cruelty and in their apathy. They take and they take from the wild places, they hunt and kill without regard for the cycle, they would make a waste and call it a kingdom, a ruin and name it wealth. They shame their ancestors, and so they shame your ancestors.

And the lord of the wild places has not forgotten his oath to those ancestors. And so he shall make you a weapon for their vengeance.

In the town of Stalheim, in the place of Norsca, there are Norscans gathered, aye. They are swathed in the symbols of the blood god, they are bathed in unrighteous blood, they are marked in the trophies of wild things taken and slaughtered and so there shall be a reckoning, there shall be a coming, there shall be a vengeance. Blood for blood.

But there is more to see for a humble mage of the White Tower as well, more to see for one who comes to wage war in a frozen hell.

Blackfangs. In the town. It seems the Druchii have arrived early, it seems the Druchii have come. Your wayward kin, servants to witches, servants to the slaves of Hekarti, servants to your rivl in the race for the staff, in your race for the Firemanes, in your race to save Tethia from a bleak fate which she has not earned.

But your eyes invariably travel further. You are shown more.

A shaman. Not a shaman. A soul of Dhar, aye. A wretched sludge, eyes and maws and fangs sometimes bubbling up from the primordial chaos of the smear that is otherwise naught but a pillar of filth that walks. Robes, plain, of gray color embroidered with some, wicked, unknown and evil script you scarcely remember but only a little like a bad dream, written onto the Warpstone the Druchii used to torment the beasts of the Annullis. A staff thrumming with the most wretched of Ghyran, the most bleak of Shyish, the most untrustable of Ulgu and the worst of Ghur. A soul of barely held together arcane marks and divine blessings that seems only ever a moment from falling apart in a blast of pure magical energy.

it is the shoddiest, most ill-put-together mysticism you have ever seen. But it is mighty; there is potency and puissance and contempt all bound into this priest of an unknown god, that chitters and bites at the walls, that longs to see death and suffering and domination.

A Beastman.

But not a Beastman as you, or any other Asur, has ever written. Ever recorded. In the long, long ages of the world.

A rat, standing many feet high, and making oaths and allegiance with the Blackfangs--with your decrepit kin--with the apostates of hell.

Immediately your heart hardens.

For a moment you are allowed to study these foes, to learn them, to know them.

And then with a gasp you are returned to your body, returned to the material, returned to elf and dwarf alike. Returned to the snow.

Returned to the cold, first and foremost.

Upon seeing you awaken, Tethia immediately starts laying your mantles and robes back upon your person even as the fire pit she set burns, returning some heat to your flesh, helped by the simple tent also arrayed around the three of you. Immediately agile, capable hands grab your jaw and look you in the eyes as she examines you for some defect, some change, and seeing nothing she finds disagreeable she turns from you and immediately starts working with some wand from when the both of you were but students, designed to ease the burden of simple spells of heat and light to keep you from dying of frostbite and hypothermia, never mind any of the other, far more serious maladies one might suffer so close to the realm of the Enemy, where Hate, Obsession, Ambition and Despair rule as gods in their little tin kingdoms.

"This...this can't keep happening."

"...Of course not, princess."

"If you two are done?" The Runelord, Hadra, speaks from her place on the opposite side of the fire pit. Tethia looks at her with a testy contempt, but diplomatic training keeps her frayed nerves from breaking, for a moment at least. "What pie in the sky, zhuf-madness has infected you now, elgi?"

Oh, there you go, her pronunciation of the word has gained that seething superiority complex only an insecure inferior faced with their better can really have. Tethia also looks curious at that, though it is also still split with her concern for you and her contempt for the Haclad.

"Kurnous...Kurnous rages. I, who have walked with the Beastwalkers, was chosen for to receive a message. The Norscans are weakened there, but they are not alone in Stalheim: Treacherous Blackfangs, wicked Blackfangs, stains upon the honor of my forefathers, not walk this land in service of your rival, my princess. And they do not walk alone. Rat-Beastmen ally with them, a shaman of potent power and terrible Dhar, a servant of some bleak god."

There is a sound of breaking wood as one of the Dwarf warriors, Hadra's guard, breaks his ax in his grip, such is his rage. For her part Hadra spits at the words. "Thaggoraki. Gray Seers. So that is why, and that is how, the Dum-Umgi have the audacity to kidnap not just me but my kin, my people, my Clan! Then we shall teach the damn ratmen and their allies the consequences of their actions! Skaven blood will turn this dirt and snow into mud and slush before the week's end, or my name is not Hadra Drakkdrengi!"

She stomps off, only just turning around to bark over her shoulder to get ready, before leaving, apparently to speak with her militia. Tethia keeps your head in her lap, not caring of the blood and not desiring that you should wander off again and get yourself killed, while you are left wondering something yourself:

There are slaves in Stalheim. There are spells you know that could turn the battle swiftly...but they tend to involve much more risk of possibly killing those who never earned such a fate, those who were merely unlucky.

But the Blackfang must die.

[] Restrain yourself.
-Will make use of less destructive spells, at the very least at the beginning of battle.
[] As mighty as possible, as quickly as possible.
-Will make use of more dangerous, more destructive spells.
[] This will be battle; and so it behooves you to cast Battle Magic.
-[] (Write In First Spell)
-As above, but also will allow you to make use of Battle Magic.
--
Moratorium until tomorrow morning.